An Epidemic of Laziness?
Paul Krugman, last Friday:
But that’s not how Republicans see it [unemployment benefits]. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”
Dancing DeLay agreed:
Crowley pointed out that saying “people are unemployed because they want to be” is a “hard sell.”
DeLay responded: “Well, it is the truth.”
Without trotting out all manner of charts and graphs [BR: Ok, one chart] to demonstrate how absurd this position is, I’ll make one comment and ask a few questions:
Comment: This position — at its core — essentially labels Americans as lazy ne’er-do-wells who’d just as soon live off society’s largesse than earn a living. Is that really a position any politician would want to take? Does anyone else find that as offensive as I do? Anyone know someone who’s living on UI and lovin’ it?
Question for Senater Kyl and Dancing DeLay: How would you explain the epidemic laziness that apparently afflicts Americans exactly at business cycle peaks, which is then somehow miraculously cured at business cycle troughs?
Interestingly, the JOLTS data was released just yesterday, and we see that there are still well over five unemployed for every job opening (near the recent record of over six, though there was an improvement in the number of job openings). The un- and under- employment rates speak for themselves. Comments like these should really be beneath any reasonable level of civil discourse. It is pathetic that they’re not.
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March 10th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Intellectual laziness is the real epidemic coupled with partisan ideology. Have u heard any of them claiming that the ‘market’ is validating the economic policies undertaken by the Democrats? No and u won’t. Were a Republican in office they would be falling over each other claiming what a success the policies have been as validated by the market.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
This is just one anecdote, but the other day the lady cutting my hair mentioned that her boyfriend got a letter saying his unemployment would run out. She said he had been laid off a while back from some factory job and had refused to look at any job that paid less. She said she had encouraged him to just find “something” that would tide them over until he could get something better later on. Finally, she said that if his unemployment did run out, then he would have to do just that — take a lower-paying, less desirable job.
I’m not suggesting the boyfriend is lazy, but the extended unemployment benefit has apparently kept him out of work — maybe. More accurately, the extensions on benefits have likely just kept people from having to face the reality of the new jobs picture. That factory job probably isn’t coming back, and new ones probably aren’t coming into the area. Many people will be forced, one way or another, to settle for less.
The other point to consider here is that not all of these “lazy” check collectors will be able to find a job. What will this do to a) GDP and b) crime rates. That’s the other thing the lady said — if “they” cut off people’s benefits, people will start “breaking in and stealing stuff.” I assume she didn’t mean her boyfriend, but to her it was a no-brainer that this would happen.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Hmmm… Barry, it seems like you’re trying to use logic and data to show a Republican how they are wrong… as my mechanic says sometimes… “Dat’s your problem right thaar”.
It’s not just intellectual laziness with these characters, it’s intellectual dishonesty. These people are saying things they know are untrue – but it’s a more profitable position for them or their campaign contributors.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
They (Kyl, DelLay, etc) are the lazy ones. Critical thought is far too hard. They prefer putrid platitudes which are a clear disservice to the many unemployed who want to work. I know more than a few who have been out of work for close to a year and actively looking.
This line of remarks simply perpetuates myths about the middle class while providing cover for the true thieves — executives, bankers, etc. If they are interested in knowing “who’d just as soon live off society’s largesse than earn a living,” all they have to do is look in the mirror. Politicians excel at parasitic behavior.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Anecdotal story: A woman I used to work with left our firm after 32 years and went to work at a law firm in a support/clerical capacity. She was laid off from the firm after working there for two years. She has collected unemployment for TWO YEARS. She has clearly stated that she is not looking for a job and will not be looking once the gravy train ends. She considers herself retired. Two years of unemployment is too much. Waaay too much.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Well put, Darmah. Few of the Republicans are too much worried about the welfare checks going out at 85 Broad or at a certain bank down in Charlotte, e.g.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
I don’t know if it makes people lazy, but I can say from personal experience years back and the recent experience I’ve seen some of my friends go through, it definitely does create an incentive to postpone looking for work.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
BR screeded:
[BR: No, Invictus screeded]
Question for Senater Kyl and Dancing DeLay: How would you explain the epidemic laziness that apparently afflicts Americans exactly at business cycle peaks, which is then somehow miraculously cured at business cycle troughs?
reply:
————-
First, I believe all Republicans in leadership positions are liars who think lying will bring them back into power.
Next: BR, assume youself in a time of reversal. You are broke, unloved, and your existing skills are useless going forward. Would you greet at WalMart or work a cash register at McDonalds or are you afraid of waiting on an old friend who hasn’t had the same problems as you? Might they sneer at you and you don’t like that idea?
Generically speaking, are continuing unemployment benefits a crutch that keeps you from mopping floors at a local hospital on the night shift? 99 weeks of gift money can change attitudes. Remember, lazy Americans are math phobic, logic impaired, glorify stupidity, expect free stuff and benefits from the government, and detest education that takes effort.
Those lying Republicans nailed it in one.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
The solution is for voters to show Mr. Bunning, Mr. Kyl, and Mr. Delay the door. Unfortunately, with their generous benefits and honoraria from corporate benefactors they will never understand what it truly means to be unemployed. But at least they might understand how it feels to be terminated.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
not sure how to address this but here goes. many moons ago (ok many decades ago ) I went through the UI torture test. first off you barely get much of what you made before you lost your job, and if you don’t have family (or others) I am not really sure how you survive as you won’t make enough to pay your bills. and you are hunting for jobs any where, and if it is like it is now, they really don’t exist. i sort of understand the boyfriends plight. do you take a job that is unrelated to what you were doing, knowing that you will likely never get back to doing what you were. and the chances of hunting another job while working full time is usually very slim. when i was in that boat i did take several part time jobs to at least keep my skills. now if you know absolutely that those jobs will never ever come back, do you move to where they might be (if there are any) or change to a new career knowing you will never make up for lost income in it?
and the GOP could care less about any body unless they are in the top 1% of income makers.
always been that, every thing else is just window dressing.
it used to be the democrats did care about the rest, but i am not really sure of that any more
March 10th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Invictus:
Do you really not understand the concept of “at the margin”? These politicians are twits but there is a definite correlation between the length of joblessness and the generousness of jobless benefits. The anecdote above about the lady’s boyfriend is exactly what this is about. Saying that extending jobless benefits extends the length of unemployment does not mean that all people who are jobless are lazy. All it means is that there are workers at the margin who will remain unemployed longer for a variety of reasons if benefits are extended. It might be because they don’t want to take a job at lower pay than the one they lost or some other reason. If they have sufficient savings extended unemployment benefits might allow them to wait for the “perfect” job rather than taking whatever comes along. You might believe there is a social benefit to that and there may be, but it doesn’t change the fact that this type of behavior does happen with some small sample of the population. There are numerous studies demonstrating this effect if you’d take the time to search them out.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
From WSJ’s Best of the Web column Friday:
Paul Krugman takes note in his New York Times column of what he calls “the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties”:
Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.
“What Democrats believe,” he says “is what textbook economics says”:
But that’s not how Republicans see it. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”
Krugman scoffs: “To me, that’s a bizarre point of view–but then, I don’t live in Mr. Kyl’s universe.”
What does textbook economics have to say about this question? Here is a passage from a textbook called “Macroeconomics”:
Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of “Eurosclerosis,” the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries.
So it turns out that what Krugman calls Sen. Kyl’s “bizarre point of view” is, in fact, textbook economics. The authors of that textbook are Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. Miss Wells is also known as Mrs. Paul Krugman.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I saw that WSJ Op Ed — it was laughably inane, and I wrote James Taranto to tell him so:
To his credit, Taranto wrote back:
March 10th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
I too recommend the parasites in DC to cut all unemployment benefits and then tell the lazy unwashed masses that if they can’t buy bread perhaps they should try cake…Unemployment benefits are not there to protect the unemployed. They are there to suppress social unrest
March 10th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
PS: Note to generous and wise Democrats; the ones who care so much for the defenseless, uninsured, unable to cope, meek, and poor:
I still need a new big screen TV. My 2010 stimulus emergency tax rebate (refundable, of course) is needed NOW! The HDMI input doesn’t work and all I can get 1080i from is component video. Please help. I can’t live like this any more.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
If youve been treated like shit on the job and then canned, a spell on unemployment can be the best revenge for a while. On the other hand my wifes office has an opening for a good paying job just now. There are 90 applicants for one position.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Okay, before the sh*t hit the fan with the Great Recession, job hunting advice was along these lines:
* looking for a job is (should be) a full time job
* it takes at least one month of searching for each $10k of income you need
* taking a job outside of your “career” path to make ends meet was not advisable
If you household income is around $60K, that’s about $1200 / week. Unemployment benefits top out at a little over $400 / week in my state. The average mortgage is probably around $250 / week.
I know folks who have wiped out what savings they had and borrowed against their retirement savings. This crap about “being lazy” is horseshit.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
@jyc3:
Thanks for lucidly explaining that yes, changing the cost/benefit ratio of employment vs. unemployment will affect those on the margin, i.e., those for whom employment costs are higher relative to the benefit of remaining unemployed.
Here’s the real question: Is the present unemployment rate as high as it is because there is no work to be found at any wage? In other words, if the price of labor declines sufficiently, would the unemployment rate be also expected to decline? Of course it would. The problem is that we fat, lazy, stupid Americans (ok, really all of developed-country citizenry) think that the world doesn’t apply to us, and so we fight labor price declines tooth and nail. We fight it through regulations on working conditions and taxes on wages that make hiring far more expensive than the value of their additional labor. We fight it through inflationary monetary policies that attempt at all cost to prevent any sort of broad price declines even when demand and productivity measures imply price declines should obtain.
There is a disjunct here between supply of labor and demand for labor. By government design and fiat, labor rates, and therefore labor supply, are very downwardly sticky. Which is why right now, and for the near-term, labor demand is apt to remain very muted.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Adding to the anecdotes—I know of 4 people personally who are milking the system (their spouses/partners still work time). Also know of a woman who works for a county judge and the judge has to retire soon. When the judge retires, so does his/her “secretary” as the new judge brings along his assistant. The woman says she’ll just go unemployment for 2 years until she can start collecting Social Security.
If, if—if, I and my wife could make ends meet with 1 of us working and the other collecting unemployment for 2 years, it would certainly be attractive. But we’re both gainfully employed so no need to think about it.
Delay and all of those guys are clowns—and nobody in DC cares about anything but staying in power but there’s truth in what they say, to a degree, with a certain segment of the population whether we want to believe it or not, or riducule them for being callous or not. We’ve turned a temporarily assistance program into a permanent lifestyle.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Barry,
If you ask for anecdotal counterexamples you’ll certainly get a few, but your main point is rock solid, whether there are a few people who don’t look as hard for work while on UI really doesn’t matter because the overall trend of unemployment during recessions and fuller employment during good economic times is an unquestionable fact. People like Kyl and Delay and Bunning are ideologues who get away with uttering nonsense because of the American national psychosis: anti-government attitudes. It is only because of this American craziness that the right can talk nonsense on any and all issues (unemployment insurance, global warming, health insurance and health care, education, etc. etc. etc.) and not only get a hearing but get reelected. It’s only because of this American national psychosis that a wimpy wuss of a Democratic president, Barack Obama, can be seen by masses of people as some raving socialist-communist-fascist who is destroying our country. It is only because of this national psychosis that Fox and Limbaugh have such an audience.
~~~
BR: Invictus gets the credit/blame for this!
March 10th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
re: LAZINESS
Deficit Spending & inflation are the last words in LAZINESS and represent the antithesis of hard work & discipline.
I hope I made my point.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
It is probably true that people get more willing to take a lesser paying job the closer they get to loosing their unemployment benefits. After having lost their benefits and just before they lose their home a lot of them will be willing to work for any money doing any work. But that does not influence unemployment. Even if a desperate person somehow convinced a minimum wage employer to give them that minimum wage job, they would simply get a job that someone else would otherwise have gotten – so unemployment would still be the same. Even in the “best” scenario all you do is having one marginalized worker bump another out into the margin. Although I know of nobody who would hire a “just-tide-me-over” job seeker if there are other applicant who clearly are looking to stay longer than until they find something better.
The only way to increase employment is to increase consumption (i.e. number of costumers in businesses so they need to hire more people). Reducing the amount of money people have and/or putting downward pressure on wages is the exact opposite of increasing consumption, it will just give us even worse unemployment. If anybody think that we can get jobs back by competing with the $-a-day countries take a quick look at their GDP – that is what you get with that approach.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Why is suggesting that people receiving “free” money are less incline to find work an offensive statement ? Its not an emotional issue. Either its true or not. I am not sure there is a personal insult here and the fact the you (BR) take it as an “offence” is rather surprising.
Could it be true that some individuals ( not all – but perhaps a good number) prefer welfare to sweeping streets ( an honest living) ? Sure many people are looking for work and would prefer to be off welfare, but that does not preclude those that are not.
Its definitely not offensive to suggest that welfare benefits may prolong unemployment. Its simple math.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
[...] Invictus at The Big Picture gets all upset about Republicans pointing out the obvious: Paul Krugman, last Friday: But that’s not how Republicans see it [unemployment benefits]. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.” [...]
March 10th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
we should remember: “Peep are resourceful bunch..”
these types of ‘gov’t programs’ should be, if at all, as local as possible..
probably wouldn’t hurt to publish a role of those ‘on the dole’..
a little ‘moral suasion’ goes a long way..
http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Moral+Suasion
March 10th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
@clawback: the problem with taking a job that’s not as good as your old one and trying to make up for it later is that working any job well interferes with one’s ability to search for better jobs.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
@clawback: the problem with taking a job that’s not as good as your old one and trying to make up for it later is that working any job well interferes with one’s ability to search for better jobs.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
During a recession where there is a shortage of jobs, and in the grand scheme, I’m not sure that it really would make any difference if people postpone or won’t take jobs “beneath them” because they have UI. If person X takes a job they’re overqualified for, it means that a less overqualified person Y will have to stay on UI. Since UI tends to max out at a pretty low level, in many cases you’re just robbing Peter (of his job) to pay (give the job to) Paul. So why is it better for a former desk jockey to mop a floor than a former floor mopper?
The problem is that there aren’t enough jobs. That has virtually nothing to do with UI. If anything, UI may have the opposite effect and be an incentive. The highest qualified people who can continue on UI (rather than spend their hours flipping burgers at McDonald’s to get them by) are the ones most likely to start up new businesses or be in positions to bring in new clients or other activities which lead to creating new jobs when things turn around. If there are going to be people on UI, it’s better that those with the highest skill sets be the ones. Leave the burger flipping jobs to people only qualified to flip burgers. Hiring and training an over-qualified person to flip burgers just to have him or her quit once the economy turns around really doesn’t help the fast food joint either.
That’s not to say there aren’t people who will game the system. You don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, though. Remember that UI is as much about keeping people spending to prevent a downward spiral as it is about propping up individuals who lost their job.
Of course the concepts of nuance and shades of gray are waaay beyond most Republicans at this point.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
I don’t have my chart on hand, but it was basically a chart of when the unemployed found jobs. Not surprisingly there was a GIGANTIC surge the same week their benefits run out. I know people on unemployment, and their desire to find a job and the amount of effort they put into is definitely related to how much longer their benefits will last.
Some will argue that we don’t want people taking jobs out of desperation, but many of these people never deserved the money they were making during the bubble. They simply need to adjust to the new reality that they aren’t the hot shit they thought they were, and many won’t until there is no choice.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
globaleyes Says:
March 10th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
re: LAZINESS
Deficit Spending & inflation are the last words in LAZINESS and represent the antithesis of hard work & discipline.
I hope I made my point.
reply:
—————
Yes, spot on and bulls eye. In approximately one full twitter, you have encapsulated the American way of life. Live on borrowed money. Print the rest. Give a lot away to deserving poor folk. Let Wall Street make bales of cash using imaginary valuations and free money and distract people from real economics. Glorify stupidity as a tool if distraction and let the dummies control the dialogue, making it appear the political retards are preventing you from doing God’s work. Never challenge anyone to learn something new that is fact based.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Mark E Hoffer Says:
“these types of ‘gov’t programs’ should be, if at all, as local as possible..”
Of course the ones you received as benefits should remain as federal as possible (mortgage interest deductions to name one). Amusing how benefits that you enjoy you believe you deserve.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
MEH,
I would certainly support publishing the top “dole earners” (the order here is almost entirely made up, but you get the idea):
1. James Dimon 17M
2. Lloyd Blankfein 9 M
3. Ken Lewis WTF M (Way Too F***ing Much)
…
March 10th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Who the F* can live on minimum wage or unemployment benefits? This is not income replacement insurance — it’s a stipend and nothing more. I’m pretty sure that unemployment benefits are paid on a sliding scale, so even a minimum wage earner earns far more by working (but still not enough to stay alive).
Those who are self-employed — a fairly large number of people, due to the recent trend of converting full-time employees to “independent contractor” status (and blatantly illegal, I might add) — are not eligible for unemployment benefits.
The Republican leadership are full of shit.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
BR asked:
Anyone know someone who’s living on UI and lovin’ it?
reply:
———–
I have an in-law who appears to have no sense of urgency.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
or is that, the Republican leadership IS full of shit?
March 10th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
BR asked:
Anyone know someone who’s living on UI and lovin’ it?
reply:
———–
I have an in-law who appears to have no sense of urgency.
oops:
————–
Sorry, two in-laws.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
I’m with the senator, those lazy arizona housing construction workers need to get off unemployment and on to a boat or in the back of a pickup truck to the nearest county, state or country where they are actually building houses.
I mean really, if they’re going to sit on their asses and just wait for Toll Brothers to break ground and start building 200,000 new McMansions in the desert, they get what they deserve.
/sarcasm
March 10th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
clawback Says:
“MEH,
I would certainly support publishing the top “dole earners” (the order here is almost entirely made up, but you get the idea):”
Let me add Angelo Mozilo
BTW I too encourage those without a job to take a lesser paying job. To that end I recommend that they apply to jobs where the “UI vigilantes” work and offer their services at 1/2 their salary …. We need to increase the turnover of the unemployed inventory
March 10th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
You know what MY definition of laziness is?
Members of a political party who have no mind of their own, who continue to spew the same damn talking points ad nasuem.
“The unemployed are just lazy. They need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”
“Obama (or any other Democrat) is making us less safe.”
“Health Care Reform is being shoved down our throats.” (Jon Stewart did a good job last week of showing clip after clip after clip of that one.)
Not that I’m a big fan of the Democratic party either; they couldn’t organize a kids birthday party much less themselves. However, to anyone of us ordinary citizens who actually think for ourselves, the Frank Luntz school is getting really, REALLY old. The Republicans need a new approach but they’re too hard-headed to admit it, and they seem convinced that being the more obnoxious party wins elections, not the party with more voters who show up.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
“So why is it better for a former desk jockey to mop a floor than a former floor mopper?”
Yes, spot on and bulls eye. To have the desk jockey take the job away from the guy who cannot do much else but mop floors, is a disaster for everybody. The desk jockey will not be good at it and be expensive in the long run for the business (they will have to replace him if he finds something better). The “professional” floor mopper will have noone else to bump and probably no other alternative for survival than crime (which will cost him and society a lot). The desk jockey will not be able to retain his “desk jockey” skills and society will end up with another low skills worker (something we already have way to many of). I know people find it horrible when somebody can live on and with UI for a while, but for society it is much better to distribute joblessness to those who for whatever reason can handle it, than to bump it down to those who cannot.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
That there are people who milk their unemployment benefits for longer than is necessary, of this there is no doubt.
Those who would deny it are more than a bit naive about human nature.
The question then is what percentage of those on U/E make up the slackers. In the current environment it seems safe to assume that they are in the minority.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
This is just one anecdote, but the other day the lady cutting my hair mentioned… A woman I used to work with… I don’t know if it makes people lazy, but I can say from personal experience years back… Adding to the anecdotes—I know of 4 people personally who are milking the system…
Why is it that conservatives always argue from anecdotes? Remember these blasts from the past?
Just yesterday at the supermarket I saw this black woman buying steaks with food stamps! My brother knows this family on welfare and they’re all driving Cadillacs!
March 10th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Perhaps Senators Kyl, Bunning and DeLay would like to return every dime they’ve ever collected from the federal government. Its easy to talk when you’ve spent the majority of your life living a privileged secluded life at the expense of taxpayers and lobbyist money which is still eating at the carcass that is the US economy.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
GWM:
“conservatives”? you’re joking, right? my political heroes include Cindy Sheehan and David Swanson — you’re barking up the wrong tree.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
From “Macroeconomics” by Paul Krugman & Robin Wells, 2nd Edition, page 210:
“In addition, public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of “Eurosclerosis,” the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European economies.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=dpTBdNGGrtUC&pg=PA210
March 10th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness*..
*(and extended unemployment benefits borrowed from the Chinese paid back [with interest] from unborn generations – because that’s who’s getting the bill, not the parasitic money changers alive now – their dough is protected by implicit mandate of the leaders clamoring for more benefits. )
People are trying to rob Peter to pay Paul, but you will end up robbing little Jimmy to pay Paul. That stinks to high hell.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
I made the mistake of overspending on education instead of housing starting in 2007, so I have been under/unemployed since I finished b-school in 06/09 – as you can imagine, the recruiting scene in September/October 2008 was nonexistent in the wake of Lehman…but on the bright side, my wilderness survival skills and combat training were not called upon due to massive risk shifting by the corporatocracy.
But I am glad that Dancin’ De Lay agrees with my father that I’m a failure…but once the shiznit really hits the fan, the meritocracy may actually return. Until then, I envy people who act rationally (unlike my idiotic self) and live on the dole – if big business can rely on government assistance, why shouldn’t Joe Subprime? Government leverage, corporate leverage, and individual leverage mask the total lack of value creation in this country.
Just don’t ask me for help, as I am clearly irrational and overly familiar with the external ballistics of my favorite projectiles, especially within the confines of my property.
Peace be with you :-)
March 10th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
“The question then is what percentage of those on U/E make up the slackers”
No that is actually irrelevant. The big question is whether society is better served with a high percentage of those on U/E being slackers (or should we call them people who have chosen the extremely low paying job of “unemployee”) or we are better of with a high percentage of those on U/E being people who are desperately on the edge.
The work for everybody is there, we just need to make it a death penalty crime to work more than 32 hours per week. Then everybody would have a job. For many different reasons we have chosen to let some people be without work why not let that be based on volunteering.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Let’s not forget that part of the problem also is that we have politicians and corporate leaders that espouse free market principles, but then don’t blink an eye at asking our labor to compete on cost with sweatshop labor in a communist country that pegs their currency against ours to maintain a favorable trade balance.
If we refused to trade in (or imposed tariffs on) goods imported from countries that pegged their currency… that would level the playing field some, no?
Also, for countries that have lax labor and environmental laws, we impose tariffs equal to the cost difference between that countries laws and ours. Standing up for labor rights and environmental principles.
Naive, I know… but I can dream, right?
March 10th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
“But I am glad that Dancin’ De Lay agrees with my father that I’m a failure…but once the shiznit really hits the fan, the meritocracy may actually return.”
No shit… my father is a boomer, was given (not inherited) the equivalent of $1 million by his father when he was 30, and worked his entire life in real estate, and was just able to *maintain* his wealth during the biggest bubble we’ve ever seen (sportfishing and country club golf ain’t cheap)… but then thinks me and my brothers are failures because we haven’t had his experience with success. He raised us in the “work hard, pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mold, where he didn’t give us shit (despite how much he was given). Note: having money makes it easier to make money. I see so much of him in how our “elites” are behaving in this country. Hypocritical self-serving BS. And we’re all poorer for it.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
What states are some of you folks in that give two years of UI benefits? I spent last summer looking for work. In my state, it’s 26 weeks and done. The stimulus was originally an additional 10 weeks or something, I forget. I believe that extension was extended again, but I still don’t end up anywhere close to 104 weeks of UI benefits. Are you coming up with 2 years due to severance pay or something?
To “earn” the UI benefits, you have to be looking for work. So if you’re retiring and filing for UI it is fraud and should be punished. My suggestion is that when you talk to these folks, you point out that they’re lying thieves. Unless you think it’s okay to steal. Perhaps lying thieves are also lazy, but the two things are not the same and shouldn’t be conflated in everybody’s anecdotes.
As for Jon Kyl, I’m happy I was lucky enough to move away from AZ just before the bubble burst. But Kyl is an ignoramus of epic proportions. I would suggest he be ignored, but he’s in a position of power.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
dead hobo writes: ” Would you greet at WalMart or work a cash register at McDonalds or are you afraid of waiting on an old friend who hasn’t had the same problems as you? Might they sneer at you and you don’t like that idea?”
What makes you think WalMart or McDonalds would give you a job, when there are 100 other people applying for the same job?
And if your prior job paid more than WalMart or McDonalds pays, they probably won’t hire you anyway, because they’ll assume you’re just going to leave as soon as something better comes along. Which is likely true. You’re most likely to get hired if your last job was at a similar level.
I think a lot of people like dead hobo have an unrealistic idea of what it’s like. They seem to think, if you have had a job that pays $X/year, then you can *automatically* get hired for any job that pays less, and by gum you’re damned well entitled to a job at WalMart or McDonalds.
In the real world, it’s entirely possible to go from making $80k at a dot-com to not getting hired for a $10/hour job managing a university computer lab, or working as a teller in a bank, etc.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
I’ll also add that the Republicans must be awfully lazy, otherwise they’d have jobs in the Executive Branch now, instead of being on wingnut welfare.
What’s that? Those jobs aren’t *available* because there’s a change of administration and party? You say they are highly unlikely to get hired even if they apply?
I don’t buy it. They’re just lazy bastards.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
“People are trying to rob Peter to pay Paul, but you will end up robbing little Jimmy to pay Paul. ”
Little Jimmy won’t be in a position to pay anyone if he and his parents end up homeless now.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
If this doesn’t put on full display their full contempt for the average American worker, I don’t know what does. Does Joe and Jane 6P really want to support these fools? Not that the Dems are that much better. They just hide their contempt better.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
” Saying that extending jobless benefits extends the length of unemployment does not mean that all people who are jobless are lazy.”
At this point in the business cycle, yes it does.
If we were near full employment, you might have a point.
But at this point in the cycle you might as well be saying that if unemployment benefits were cut off sooner, the unemployed would get flying ponies. It’s magical thinking. The jobs aren’t there, and making people desperate for jobs isn’t going to make them magically appear.
(Cutting benefits would likely reduce consumer spending, resulting in even fewer jobs to be found.)
March 10th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
It would be nice if the Republicans could find any sign of jobs going unfilled for lack of applicants.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Barry you are dead wrong on this, as jcw3rd68 points out. It may not be a huge effect, but studies have shown that generous, extended unemployment compensation slows the decrease in unemployment–not just in Europe.
It’s not that people are lazy. But when the wolf is at the door, you are more willing to move to another city or make other sacrifices to gain employment.
Your cocksureness on this item on which you are wrong isn’t attractive.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Re catman Says: March 10th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
If youve been treated like shit on the job and then canned, a spell on unemployment can be the best revenge for a while. On the other hand my wifes office has an opening for a good paying job just now. There are 90 applicants for one position.
___________________________
The corp/business aviation world is very niche and to give you an idea of the systemic damage just in my little world, an example:
Chief Pilot for a Lear 31 put out the word (not advertised, yet) that he was in need of a 1st officer
(right seat) who was typed (certified for the aircraft) AND have a A&P (aircraft mechanic) rating.
In ‘normal’ times, one might have expected 5-10 applicants. Over 100 resumes showed up (via word of mouth) of very qualified pilot/mechanic’s for a position that is parttime and pays a notch above what the commuters (airlines) would pay.
Given that there has been a 30-40% markdown in aircraft pricing within the last 18 months, and a whole lot of ships stuffed in rented hangars around the country, it does not take much guesswork that
the lien holders/lenders are using the same practice that is being utilized with REO property for off balance sheet creative accounting for all to ‘look good’.
Astounding to say that (on average) that there are six applicants for every opening according to the talking heads/msm. I’d wager the numbers are a lot higher…..
As always, your mileage might vary.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Barry isn’t the author of this post-FYI.
@algernon: What “sacrifices” are you talking about? I can see your point during ordinary times but these are FAR from ordinary times. What’s interesting is that sheeple is often FAR less exorcised by all the corporate and Wall Street welfare out there, but crumbs to J6P is seen as a crime. What a fucked up a country (and stupid) we are……I’d almost venture to say that the sheeple deserve to get kicked in the nuts if they can’t even muster up the energy to defend themselves and one another.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
“In addition, public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of “Eurosclerosis,” the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European economies.”
UI benefits that are generally low, and are extended on a special case basis, aren’t as “generous” as the Europeans have, which are high and pretty much constant, rather than varying with economic cycles as ours do.
Furthermore, the other part of “Eurosclerosis” is reluctance to *hire* because it’s very hard to fire employees. We certainly don’t have that in the US.
We have little hiring now because the economy’s been in the crapper for a long time and hiring lags.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
“It’s not that people are lazy. But when the wolf is at the door, you are more willing to move to another city or make other sacrifices to gain employment.”
Let’s see. They can’t sell the house. They probably can’t rent it either. So that makes it harder to move.
What other sacrifices do you suggest? Goat? Ox? Human?
You seem to be having a hard time grappling with reality.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Nobody seems to want to answer this bigger question – what if there simply aren’t enough productive activities around the world (especially the race to the bottom also knowns as “global free trade” or “serfdom”) for people to do now and going forward? What will the ramifications be? Instead of vilifying those unfortunate people, many of whom lost their jobs through no fault of their own, why don’t we ponder that question and try to address it? Oh, I know, because it’s easier to pick on the unlucky and the weak. What a country. Predator Nation rolls onward.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Exactly jonhendry, but trying to rationalize with nitwits like algernon and other teabagger ilk is an exercise in futility. Some people cannot be reasoned with.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
What it might do, if you have another source of income, is give you the power to wait it out while you look for something else comparable to your last job — not unlike the hairdresser’s boyfriend, who had a hairdresser bringing home another paycheck to keep them afloat. But why on earth would him taking a job at WalMart as a greeter be better for society? Shouldn’t he be able to be on benefits for a little while so he can be free to really WORK at getting something new that is a comparable level of skills and pay? SERIOUSLY, people: labor is a resource, and it can be grossly misallocated just like our capital resources have become. But when you misallocate capital resources it tends to cause less mental anguish. The benefits are ridiculously low. No one can live on that, I don’t care what people “anecdotally” say.
UI here bites. The max would be roughly 1/5 of what my spouse brings home. That would cover about 1/2 our rent. We have three children, two with special needs: cobra of our insurance, from past experience, runs around the same amount as the max UI benefit would be. Now what raving jackass is going to suggest that we wouldn’t be moving heaven and earth to find new employment?!? Oh – that’s right. That great man of the people, Tom “fraud and poison” Delay.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
I’ve only been on UI once (in ’98 briefly for about a month) but all it does is basically allow one to eat and keep one from being homeless. Nothing more. Trust me.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Barry,
You sure don’t have a handle on human nature. My daughter (BA marketing) lost her job last May. She hasn’t looked for a job in 9 months. Frankly she enjoys sitting at home all day long. Between child support and government assistance she’s doing just fine thank you. “I’ll start looking, when I have to” is the answer. In other words when her Unemployment benefits are close to running out. “After all I paid for those benefits I should use them…..” She is more than content to sit at home for two years (especially in a lousy job market) as opposed to doing the hard work required these days to find a job.
I suspect there are a lot more out there than you might think.
Icarus
~~~
BR: Icarus
You sure don’t have a handle on Reading Comprehension. I didn’t write this(see the author name in the top right hand corner?)
But regardless of who wrote this, I am glad you have the answers based on your lazy ass bum daughter and the rest of your suspicions.
You sure don’t have a handle on data analysis or critical thinking . . .
March 10th, 2010 at 6:57 pm
Robespierre Says: March 10th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
R,
as clawback delineates, above, below your post, let the whole of it be written..
and, to be clear, ‘Morgage Interest-deductions’ are, simply, another bad idea.
as soon as We start using the Tax Code to ‘incentivize’ behaviors, we should know that: 1. Those rules should be thrown out, and, 2. Tax Rates are too high..
LSS: More ‘Rules’ make for less thinking, which, hardly, encourages Innovation..
March 10th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
One of the problems with our current system of wage compensation, supply vs demand for labor, etc is that those who retain their jobs also retain their high compensation. This creates a wedge between the employed and the unemployed, and makes each attribute crazy thoughts/motivations to the other. In most cases, they are identical, except for the quirk of fate that placed them in a job which disappeared. No amount of hard work would have prevented it.
Perhaps we could try a thought exercise here. Instead of the current system of matching labor to jobs, we could hypothesize a switch to one where, when we have an excess of labor, EVERYONE (including management) keeps their job and suffers a lowering of compensation until the aggregate cost for labor satisfies the demands of the marketplace.
Think about such a system for a while (if your mind is sufficiently limber), and what it would do for the “lazy”.
I think that the people who actually believe that the majority of unemployed are simply “lazy” are merely explaining their own good fortune by attributing it to their own innate worth as employees. Nothing could be further from the truth.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
@jyc3
@Algernon
I’m not a fan of those who refute what someone by arguing “there are studies out there and you should go look them up.” If there are such studies out there — and I’m sure there are — I believe the onus is on you — not me — to present the evidence you’ve found, and not ask me to do your homework for you.
That said, I’m afraid that for every study you could find supporting your opinion, I could find one supporting mine. This has become an increasingly large problem as politics has infected even the most fundamental data analysis. This is why I have always preferred mining the data myself, crunching my own numbers, and drawing my own conclusions while simultaneously drawing on the knowledge of economists I believe ply their trade in a non-partisan way.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Invictus asked, “Anyone know someone who’s living on UI and lovin’ it?”
I’ll answer, yeah, I do.
I’m not sure what circles you hang out with but it is probably people that are professional, educated, and definitely not sitting around on UI and lovin’ it.
I’m 26, living in San Diego and working while going to school to get where you are today. When I’m taking a breather and out with my buddies that have been laid off, I have seen that they gave up looking for jobs very quickly and are now content to just live moderately off of unemployment until it runs out and then try to go back to school. So this is not representative of America. This may not be representative of this particular age group (I like to think I hold up the average) but there is definitely a segment of our population that is just hunkered down and living off of unemployement, even if they are not necessarily loving it.
It’s simply a matter of how many people are in that segment. Not 100%, but certainly not 0%.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
@constantnormal: Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!
March 10th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
But there will always be those who game the system to their benefit. Just ask the denizens on Wall Street. Andgo figure – we haven’t done away with them or that system yet, have we?
One surefire way of tipping us into a Depression would be to yank UI away from the millions of unemployed now. Then we’d see the social unrest in the streets and violence that many here predicted (erroneously) last year.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
And remember, this is an INSURANCE program. Millions of the now unemployed have PAID into this system over the years. They’re just receiving the claim on that insurance now.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
constantnormal:
“I think that the people who actually believe that the majority of unemployed are simply “lazy” are merely explaining their own good fortune by attributing it to their own innate worth as employees. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
I don’t think that could be written any better than you have put it there.
Most success is an intersection of luck, who you know, and ability… in that order. Yet there are many who are “successful” who will confidently claim that their success is all of their own making, as if the timing, community, and environment they grew up in and around had nothing to do with it.
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, that at the time was applied to Bush but easily applies to many successful people I have met:
“Born on third and thinks he hit a triple.”
March 10th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
“Anyone know someone who’s living on UI and lovin’ it?”
Actually, I’m working on reestablishing my eligibility to receive it AGAIN this fall. A six month paid vacation? Please… Life if too F**CKING short. I made welfare determinations in AK, GA and NM and without a doubt there is a huge group of citizens who can live quite contently on AFDC/TANF, Medicaid and/or Food Stamps. I take a little higher road but I work the system to my advantage too. Doesn’t just about everyone you know? They might not be “lovin’ it” but they’re more comfortable knowing that the income is steady and they won’t have to worry about the rug being pulled from under their feet by the actions of someong else. Getting fired, CEO malfeasance, company goes belly up… whatever. They set their sites a little lower as they realize that acheiving the American Dream without first being connected is as likely to happen as winning the lotto. What’s the U6 these days, 19 or 20%? We all get by, best that we can…
March 10th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Manny – you beat me to that. I’ve been on UI once in my life (for the full six months allowed) yet I’ve been paying into that system for the better part of 22 years.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Constant – don’t come here very often, but wanted to say I hope your wife’s family is all ok in Chile.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
@Thor
Actually, her family is all back in the States, but they have a lot of friends back in Chile, and they survived intact (albeit with considerable demolishment of their property).
I guess this has got to put a dent in my list of places to “escape” to when this nation finally collapses under the load of compounded debt. Either that, or I’m going to have to learn to accept the periodic devastation of the space where I live. I’m too lazy to like that much.
I will say that the hard-working nature of the Chileans, faced with incomprehensible devastation, is simply amazing how they are simply rolling up their sleeves and starting to rebuild. No laziness there. Must be their government assistance while they get their lives back together.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Conservatives citing Krugman’s claims of the downside of UI and the possible cause of “Eurosclerosis” have once again proven themselves clueless on the real world of most working Americans. UI here in the US is not- I repeat- NOT generous. I am getting $425 each week (since November) but that is 30% of my former pay. I’ve been using UI to transition to self employment/starting my own business but that is only because I had savings. That cushion is disappearing but UI has helped me buy some time.
BR is right on here. The GOP really have no clue, and it IS offensive to suggest we are lazy.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
I’ve got a deal for all those “people on unemployment are lazy” folks: give your job to us. It’s that easy. Put your money where your mouth is. Give your job to me. I’ll gladly send you the dollars I would receive from UI in return for *your* paycheck. YOU TOO can finally live the Good Life (TM).
Guess the fact that it’s INSURANCE and the we *paid dividends* while they were working goes ignored.
If unemployment checks make workers lazy, what did the trillions in TARP payments do to the banks? When are *they* gonna stop being lazy and start looking for jobs? 4010?
Just another case of “if its for us, it’s capitalism… if its for them, its socialism”.
I’ve got a deal for all those “people on unemployment are lazy” folks: give your job to us. It’s that easy. Put your money where your mouth is. Give your job to me. I’ll gladly send you the dollars I would receive from UI in return for *your* paycheck. YOU TOO can finally live the Good Life (TM). Guess the fact that it’s INSURANCE and the we *paid dividends* while they were working goes ignored. If unemployment checks make workers lazy, what did the trillions in TARP payments do to the banks? When are *they* gonna stop being lazy and start looking for jobs? 4010? Just another case of “if its for us, it’s capitalism… if its for them, its socialism”.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
I work in a pharmaceutical plant in NC and have known many people, unfortunately, who have lost their jobs or have family members who have lost their jobs. My personal experience has been that many, not all, have waited until their benefits have nearly run out before looking very hard for a job. The severance pay along with unemployment has not been a motivator for them to find something new.
Friday will be my test as my job has been eliminated. I plan on looking hard until I find a new job in pharma regardless of where it is. This is also a problem for many unemployed people. Many people will not move if they lose their job even if they can get a relocation package to move to a new one. Granted lower level and hourly people are rarely offered relocation benefits by hiring companies.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
“Manny – you beat me to that. I’ve been on UI once in my life (for the full six months allowed) yet I’ve been paying into that system for the better part of 22 years.”
Likewise… I feel compelled to add that I’ve been paying into that system for two decades as well, and fortunately have never had to go on unemployment. I did get laid off twice two years ago when the economy first started going down, but was fortunate enough to find new jobs quickly, despite seeing my salary go from 52 to 35 in the process.
After the second layoff I actually got the call about my current job while driving to file unemployment for the first time (I felt sick to my stomach just thinking of having to do that). Instead I turned my truck around. Many aren’t that fortunate, however (as if I’ve been that fortunate as a comparison point anyway). Experiences like that are why I want to punch people in the face that try to lecture others about laziness and unemployment and such when they have never been in the same position.
Hard-working people getting the shaft while white collar criminals get golden parachutes… what a country we have become.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Nobody seems to understand what Bunning was doing. All he wanted is for the Senate to pay for the extension in benefits from another program. Only about 1/3 of the original $800 billion in stimulus has been spent. So why do we see more stimulus programs being suggested? Someones going to have to pay off this massive debt that is growing at a rapid rate.
Today another stimulus of over $100 billion was being worked on to extend benefits for another year. Does that mean some folks will be looking at almost three years of sitting home on their ass and collecting a check? Hell I was laid off a few times in the last 10 years and when I was near the end of my 4th month, I was already looking for other work.
I left my longest job of 28 years at a supermarket when they offered me a small retirement package. I saw the writing on the wall, and knew the company would be leaving the area I lived in shortly due to more competition coming into the neighborhood. I took my small $15,000 retirement package from which the government and state took 4,500 of it in taxes and I spent 7 months traveling back and forth 5 days a week attending Welder Training and Testing institute.
It was a 2 hour drive each way. When I finished the school, I sent out at least 100 resumes to every company that might need welders. I didn’t sit home on my butt hoping for someone to give me a handout. I was 50 years old at the time. Try changing your career at 50. Because I took the retirement package I wasn’t allowed to collect unemployment. The school I attended had about 20 other trainees and I must have been the only one that paid for the course. All the others got it free from the states pic program.
I’m now working a three day shift and collecting a partial. I’m at the age where I only have maybe three years left till I retire. Maybe I sound a bit like Im tooting my horn. So be it. I think todays generation is more dependant on the government. I’m old enough to remember the care packages. Anyone out there remember what was in a care package? Powered eggs, Powered milk, Peanut butter and not much more. Thats what you go from the government instead of a check. When all you could expect from the government was more powered eggs, you didn’t waste much time sitting at home thinking about taking a lower paying job. You took what was available.
Times sure have changed.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Constant, I’m glad to hear that. Yes, those lazy Chileans are pretty shifty aren’t they? ;-)
Seriously though, I don’t know where all of you people live, but unemployment in LA is most definitely not enough to live on – you might be able to pay for your rent, but good luck finding enough left over for food if there’s anyone except you who needs to eat.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
This is really pretty basic stuff and there are tons of studies which confirm the behavior:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=425572
http://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_1765.html
http://www.heritage.org/research/Labor/wm2759.cfm
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=537948
http://www.nber.org/papers/w2741
In other words, this isn’t particularly controversial stuff in the econ world.
Having said all that, I am not opposed to the extension of benefits in this case. The effects are at the margin and with unemployment this high are likely to be minimal. Yes, some will voluntarily extend their stay on the unemployment rolls but the vast majority are looking to get off as soon as they possibly can. But that doesn’t excuse lazy thinking on the part of Invictus.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
The problem with all of those studies is that if there are only 1 job opening per 5 unemployed persons, the unemployment length is irrelevant . . .
March 10th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Dogfish – why did you feel sick to your stomach? I took a full six months off because I’ve always been a good saver and wanted to take some time off work. I figured (at the time) that it might be the only time I’d be unemployed for awhile so I wanted to take full advantage of the benefit. At the time it was quite a bit less than current benefits.
I suppose you could say that was a lazy thing to do. I do feel though, that I’ll probably pay far more into UI than I’ll ever get out of it.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
This bears repeating:
doodad: “If unemployment checks make workers lazy, what did the trillions in TARP payments do to the banks?”
Right on.
Privatize the gains, socialize the losses. Quite the example our elites have set. If only they weren’t so self-servingly myopic as to realize they are shooting themselves in the foot in the process. We’re all on the same team, labor and capital is a symbiotic relationship, not a competitive one where we need to take sides and fight for one or the other. Suppress one long enough… action, reaction. Along with vacuums, nature abhors imbalance. And the unstated and one-sided class warfare for the past few decades have gotten things severely imbalanced. Those in power have the opportunity and responsibility to peacefully move towards a more balanced society, or if things continue in this same direction a more ugly and violent rebalancing awaits all of us.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
“Nobody seems to understand what Bunning was doing. All he wanted is for the Senate to pay for the extension in benefits from another program.”
I understood what he was doing; but he could’ve easily made his “principled stand” against the big banks and such that got us into this mess instead of doing so atop the least fortunate in this country that the banksters have already shat all over. Instead he choose to piss on them so he could tell everyone on the news that it’s raining principles.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Amen, foxmuldar.
When one looks at the unimaginable amount of money being blown by Uncle Stupid on all manner of programs, it is inconceivable that nobody attempted to satisfy Sen Bunning’s demands to show how this was going to be covered by shifting around the wastage instead of borrowing still more … the C-17 program being forced on the Pentagon springs to mind, and I’m certain there is a thousand times that much that could easily be redirected, without spending an additional nickel. THAT was Jim Bunning’s point, not this clueless nonsense about “lazy” Americans lacking jobs.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
“Dogfish – why did you feel sick to your stomach?”
I felt ashamed about it. Despite my recent misfortune, I’m a capable guy and grew up in a well-to-do family and never thought I’d have to be in a position to require any form of social welfare; there’s others less fortunate than I that need it more. Yet, shit happens…
March 10th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
@jyc3
Out of five, one’s from the Heritage Foundation, two from a prof who’s at the University of Chicago, confirming what I’d said about the politicization of data analysis. I’ll look at the other two.
However, as BR pointed out, when you’ve got record or near-record applicants/job-seekers for every job opening, it stands to reason that duration is going to increase and even those who aren’t lazy are going to have a tough time.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
It’s almost surreal to read through so many of the comments in this thread – I just checked the open positions list for the company I work for and we have 15 open positions in our Development department. Most of the people we have here doing programming are Indian immigrants. We’ve always have a very difficult time filling many of our IT positions.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Dogfish,
Bunning has been one of the strongest opponents of the bailouts, from start to finish. He’s been opposed to Bernanke and Geithner, and voted against their nominations for this reason. He even opposed the GSE bailouts and told Paulson exactly what he could do with his “bazooka.” Bunning might be a mean SOB, but he’s the real deal when it comes to the bailouts.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Mark E Hoffer Says:
March 10th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
we should remember: “Peep are resourceful bunch..”
these types of ‘gov’t programs’ should be, if at all, as local as possible..
probably wouldn’t hurt to publish a role of those ‘on the dole’..
a little ‘moral suasion’ goes a long way..
http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Moral+Suasion
———-
@MEH:
Perhaps putting debtors into Stocks, shackled on the Public Green where the Townsfolk could throw their rotten fruit and veggies at them might be an even better punishment than posting their names on a Pamphlet that could be tacked to the “Old Oak Tree” reminding folks that they are “ON THE DOLE!”
I assume you’ve read Charles Dickens? You do know why he wrote his “stories” that became Novels, don’t you?
But, you are comfortable going back to that? Perhaps “Salem Witch Trials” once again for public spectacle for those “deviants” in our society who are loners who like black cats? Where does this end…in your view… Making “Public Ridicule” of ordinary folks when the “PERPS” on WALL ST….seem to be getting the same Big Bonuses for Lying, Cheating and Thieving?” AND….how much more on the “Public Dole” can Wall St. Bankers/Investment Cheat Houses BE….these days. ?????
March 10th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
clawback, I wasn’t aware of that, thanks for bringing it to my attention. Then I partially retract my previous criticism of him, because if he’s been consistent about it the whole way then that’s different, and my error for not looking more into his previous positions. If we had more people like that along the way we might of actually seen the market hit bottom already and be experiencing a genuine recovery instead of tip-toeing across a freshly printed paper bridge that’s going to collapse under us in our attempt to maintain the status quo.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Thor Says:
March 10th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
It’s almost surreal to read through so many of the comments in this thread – I just checked the open positions list for the company I work for and we have 15 open positions in our Development department. Most of the people we have here doing programming are Indian immigrants. We’ve always have a very difficult time filling many of our IT positions.
—–
Thor…perhaps you should “resource back to India the “15 Open Positions” that you have and maybe the Indian Immigrants you have filling the jobs would be happy to get a big bonus to go back and supervise the Indian Call Centers that Average Americans have to deal with daily?
I would have thought that the “Indian Immigrants” would have come here for a better job than they could have gotten back home where all our American Companies are routing their “so-called Customer Service” facilities to these days.
Oh My….Were you trying to say that “honest Indian Immigrants” are willing to take jobs that “slacker Americans won’t touch?”
Pretty amazing…if that’s what you were trying to say given most average Americans experience with what tries to passs for “Customer Service” for anything these days. It’s amazing. Perhaps you have some better perspective on this that I might have missed?
March 10th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
@jyc3
Excerpt of abstract from first of remaining two studies I go to look at: “…this program is targeted to individuals aged 50 years or older, living in certain eligible regions in Austria.”
I’m thinking a study involving a 50+ year old cohort in “certain eligible regions in Austria” might not be so applicable to the entire UI-collecting population of the United States. But, of course, I could be wrong. On to Study #5.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
@Thor
I think you hit the nail on the head. The credit bubble collapsing exposed the frightful misallocation of labor in our nation. If Americans spent the last 10 years learning programming and systems integration ,etc. . they would be much better suited for the modern economy.
But why learn c++ ,java, or python when you can sling mortgages, work @target, day trade bloated stocks, or get a platinum card with 10,000 credit limit(ok i’m guilty too). This is an ugly example of a prevalent phenomena. Christ we built 25 years of homes in 5.
We have alot of buggy-whip makers in our economy, and the automobile is upon us, so to speak.. We must adapt.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
@Thor — how ’bout a link to the appropriate page?
March 10th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
It used to be you had to trek down to the UE office and stand in long lines, but now you can just phone it in. For those of us who don’t like our current jobs and can scrape by on UE w/o dipping too much into savings, being “Funemployed” isn’t all that bad. One of my co-workers even said that with the combination of UE benefits and saving on daycare expenses for two kids, it would probably be a wash compared with his current paycheck.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
TakBak -
“Oh My….Were you trying to say that “honest Indian Immigrants” are willing to take jobs that “slacker Americans won’t touch?”
WTF? Where on Earth did you get the impression I was even remotely implying such a thing? Do you make a habit of trying to put words in other people’s mouths? If so I’d stop because trust me, it doesn’t paint a very positive image of you.
These are very high end computer programmers, not call center operators we have positions open for.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Thor wrote: ” Most of the people we have here doing programming are Indian immigrants. We’ve always have a very difficult time filling many of our IT positions.”
Hm… Perhaps that’s by design? How many locals interview?
March 10th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Constant – not sure what link you’re looking for? My company web site? Or the open positions from our intranet?
March 10th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
“These are very high end computer programmers, not call center operators we have positions open for.”
Are they local immigrants or H1Bs sent by a body shop? How much do they make? Are they paid like very high-end computer programmers? $100k+?
Where are you located? An coastal urban area or flyover country?
March 10th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
@TakBak04 — it’s been my observation that most Americans are woefully ill-prepared for the rigors of serious IT work. Most seem to assume that a trade school course on programming for Windows with Visual Basic (or C#, or some other vendor-dependent toolkit) prepares them for dealing with the rigors of a reality that is a muddle of all kinds of toolkits. It also does not hurt to know something about how businesses are actually run at the operational level — things like inventory control systems, financial item processing. A facile approach to learning and adaptation also goes a long way. That’s what makes it difficult to fill most IT positions.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
@Thor — my bad, I assumed that the open positions would have a listing accessible from outside the intranet. Perhaps that contributes to their being hard to fill?
March 10th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Speaking of studies:
I note that Mark Zandi was an economic advisor to the presidential campaign of John McCain.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
John – we’re in LA – so yes, you could say we’re in a coastal urban area. I’m one of the IT Managers, I don’t make it my business to ask people’s immigration status, do you? We pay them the market rate for their work, some of these positions (listed below) require skills that are not easy to obtain. Again, I don’t make a habit of asking how much they make, again, do you?
A couple of the jobs we’ve had problems finding qualified applicants for are below.
BI Developer
Senior Database Developer
Senior Oracle Technical Developer
Oracle Finance Functional Developer
Senior Unix Administrator
March 10th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
@Thor
“If Americans spent the last 10 years learning programming and systems integration ,etc. . they would be much better suited for the modern economy.”
Those jobs are being moved to lower cost regions like India. I’m speaking from experience, being a .Net/C# developer.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Constant – The postings for jobs are all over the place (we currently have about 80 open positions) some are on Dice, some through recruiters, some on craigslist. Again, I’m in IT, not HR, so I don’t get too involved in where they find the people – my job is to set them up when they come in.
I work for the company that makes P90X and Insanity if you’ve ever been bored and watched the infomercials, they’re usually on all the time.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
“A couple of the jobs we’ve had problems finding qualified applicants for are below.”
Okay, so where/how do you advertise, how many applicants do you get, and how many do you interview?
I should add that if you’re getting lots of applicants and just not hiring any, that doesn’t really support the contention that people are lazy and not looking for work.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
JohnHendry -
Jesus Christ, are you for real? Why don’t you call our HR department and ask them these questions. Why are you even talking to me about something that does or does not support the contention that people are lazy and not looking for work? I’ve made no such statement and am not trying to argue any such position because I do not believe it to be true.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Invictus: They used this program in the study to isolate the effect. One of the problems with these studies as with all studies of this nature is that you are working with a counterfactual. Since you don’t know what would have happened without the extension it is hard to isolate the exact effects of the study. Using examples such as the one in this study makes it easier to isolate the effect because it was targeted to a small group. That doesn’t invalidate the results of the study; if anything it makes them more relevant.
You are missing the point here – the effects are at the margin. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist and for you to say that this is beneath civil discourse is like saying we should just bury our heads in the sand when it comes to human behavior we don’t like. You seem to be saying that acknowledging that people do exist at the margin who respond to these incentives is somehow evil or wrong. It isn’t; it’s an acknowledgement of the way humans actually act. Unless I’m missing something, that is what the study of economics is all about. It’s important information to have and should inform policy in some ways. As I said in my blog post, I happen to agree with the extension of benefits in this case because the effects are extremely marginal due to the extreme degree of unemployment. That’s the compassionate thing to do at this point. But what would be the right thing to do if the unemployment rate was 7%? or 6%? or 5%? Maybe these studies might be useful in those cases and we shouldn’t ignore them.
You and others here are making an assumption about the motives of people who do these studies or use them. While Tom Delay and Jim Bunning may have a political axe to grind (although Bunning is retiring and Delay is out of office and unlikely to ever be elected to anything again), I don’t and I seriously doubt the researchers (with the possible exception of Heritage which is obviously partisan) who produced these studies do either. You are the one that tried to make a political point with your post by responding to what some stupid politician said. Of course the politicians are trying to score political points; so what. Barry runs money and so do I and the only thing we should want to know is what the effects of a certain policy are on the economy and the markets. That’s why this stuff is important; not so one side can score political points. Grow up.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
“t. But what would be the right thing to do if the unemployment rate was 7%? or 6%? or 5%? ”
Since benefits are being periodically extended, clearly at some point they will stop being extended. Presumably that happened at some point after the last recession.
It’s not like anyone’s saying we should codify in law 60 months of UI. It’s just that cutting them, NOW, before unemployment has even started dropping, is absurd, let alone for some politician to say we have 10% unemployment due to lazyness.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Invictus: Just to further make the point that you are the one trying to score political points here. You cite Zandi’s study above and point out that Zandi was an advisor to McCain as if that is somehow relevant. Whether the study is sound scholarship is totally irrelevant to who has employed Zandi as an advisor. I didn’t vote for McCain and frankly Zandi as an advisor would tend to make me less likely to vote for him anyway but that is irrelevant. And by the way, the link you provide is pretty good debunking of Zandi’s paper. Thanks for the link so I didn’t have to do it myself. Again, who cares about the politics? Are you interested in being a good analyst, a good investor or just a partisan hack? You can’t be both.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
“@TakBak04 — it’s been my observation that most Americans are woefully ill-prepared for the rigors of serious IT work.”
Indeed… I’m a self taught programmer and was a really geeky kid (when I was 12 I asked for Borland Turbo C for Christmas… sad but true)… and most recent CompSci graduates I’ve come across learn at universities that are given all free Microsoft stuff, where they are trained to click-drag components and click the right buttons in Visual Studio. They don’t get taught whats going on behind the scenes unless it’s a serious engineering school.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
The far-right wing nut spout dogma not so different than the Klan. “It is ACORN and CRE that ruined the banking industry and now the same MY-NOR-IT-EASE are too lazy to go get an honest job and want to live on gub’ment handouts.”
It’s not so much the bigotry itself that is so trying but the lamentably lame efforts of those so incredibly stupid in trying to justify it.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Wow, what a thread! Lots of great comments!
The only thing I can’t figure out is what the open positions at Troy’s company have to do with this. Was that an argument for cutting unemployment benefits? I doubt that you can become a “Senior Oracle Technical Developer” while collecting unemployment checks…
March 10th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Pete – What are you, the blog topic police? It was a statement on the irony of unemployment – that in a thread where we’re talking about how hard it is for people to find jobs today, there are companies (like my own) who still have a hard time finding qualified applicants to fill open positions.
If you need help tying that back to the thread topic itself you could make the argument that the more motivated long term unemployed could use some of the time they’ve been unemployed to retrain. No, you couldn’t become a SOTD while collecting unemployment checks, but if you’ve been unemployed for nearly two years as some people have been to become a junior programmer.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
@Thor
I was merely stating my confusion. Have a bong, or something, you seem to be stressed out. :)
I think your company having open positions for “Senior Oracle Technical Developers” while the unemployment is high has zero irony content. Judging by your last comment I think you start to realize this by now. Do you have bunch of openings for junior programmers?
March 10th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Thor Says:
March 10th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
TakBak -
“Oh My….Were you trying to say that “honest Indian Immigrants” are willing to take jobs that “slacker Americans won’t touch?”
WTF? Where on Earth did you get the impression I was even remotely implying such a thing? Do you make a habit of trying to put words in other people’s mouths? If so I’d stop because trust me, it doesn’t paint a very positive image of you.
———
Thor, you said you had openings for 15 Positions. I read your post that these were experienced IT folks and I suggested that they could go back and “Supervise” the Call Centers. (I assume one needs to have some high quality IT experience to supervise?)
Plus…I know folks with high quality Tech Skills who can’t find jobs here…because the positions they qualify for are being “Insourced” from India and they will work much more cheaply than those here paying off school loans. After Dot Com Bubble…jobs dried up for so many of these folks and they’ve been getting part time here and there are or working for the Geek Squad in repair. IBM and others have been laying off folks they have to give high salaries and benefits to so they can outsource or companies try to say that our workers just aren’t skilled. These folks are all highly skilled, including many who had carreers from the beginning with IBM and then moved off into the Dot Com Start ups where they were making good money and increasing their programming skills.
It’s the companies here laying off and outsourcing and insourcing for cheap is what I hear from the tech folks I come into contact with. And, I live in a high tech area so this isn’t some isolated place where there aren’t experienced folks. I live in Forbes Magazines #1 Wired City in America! Our IT folks are hurting because of the outsourcing and insourcing on the cheap.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
@jyc3
1) I did not say that the Austrian study was “invalid,” I said “I’m thinking a study involving a 50+ year old cohort in “certain eligible regions in Austria” might not be so applicable to the entire UI-collecting population of the United States.” There’s a huge difference. Pay attention and try to keep up. This isn’t so hard. You apparently think the Austrian experience translates into what’s happening in the United States. I have my doubts, though readily concede it might capture the Austiran experience with 50+ year olds perfectly well.
2) Neither Kyl nor DeLay or anyone else who’s jumped on their bandwagon has talked about effects “at the margin,” as you now have at least twice. Their statements were fairly clear and unequivocal.
3) I don’t recall ever saying that mine was anything but a political post, so I’m not sure why you’re so surprised. If I did, please point out to me exactly where I did so. I found Kyl’s and DeLay’s comments offensive, and said so. I guess I missed BR’s memo that every post had to be squarely on economics or the markets.
4) I’d take Zandi over Heritage any day. I’ve found Zandi to be a straight-shooter who calls it as he sees it, which is exactly why I thought it relevant that he was an advisor to a Republican presidential candidate.
5) I run money, too. Not sure why anyone’s occupation is relevant to the discussion.
6) As you can see from the number of comments, apparently plenty of people “care about the politics.”
March 10th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
I say Bunning for Pres. Palin can be his VP. That ought to really wrap things up.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Come to think of it, I actually work for a company that hired lots of junior IT folks in 2007 and 2008. I don’t think we had any problems filling the positions. All of these new hires were graduates from US colleges. I personally know a handful of them and the majority (of this obviously non-representative sample) were born in the US. And just to address another typical stereotype: about half of them are caucasian.
Based on this admittedly anecdotal evidence I am going to say people who are dismissing Americans’ ability to do IT jobs don’t know what they are talking about.
As always, YMMV.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Thor Says:
“A couple of the jobs we’ve had problems finding qualified applicants for are below.
BI Developer
Senior Database Developer
Senior Oracle Technical Developer
Oracle Finance Functional Developer
Senior Unix Administrator”
Then perhaps you should follow the advice given to the unemployed by some people here (take a lesser job). So instead of no filling those positions lower your standards and hire someone that may be less qualified than what you want. Or this “sacrificing” only works for the unemployed and not the “unfulfilled”?
March 10th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
The fact that a company has a hard time finding qualified applicants for highly specialized jobs is not relevant for the issue of whether losing UI will get people to find a job. When Walmart cannot find entry level employees, then we know that the length of UI needs to be cut.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Pete – Can you show me where I said that I was dismissing Americans ability to do IT jobs? I said MY company was having problems finding qualified IT people in our development department. That is a statement of fact for MY company, not a sweeping generalization about the entire US job market. That’s your line of thought, not mine.
The city I live in is no more an accurate or reliable representation of the US in general than NYC would be and the company I work for is in no way an accurate representation of the overall workforce in this county. Why you would suggest I would make any of these ludicrous claims is a mystery to me.
TakBak – IT is a very broad term – I’m in IT but I’m on the support side – these people are developers, they write the programs and databases that run our business – I could no more do their jobs than I could do the job of an electrician – very different positions. If I had to guess, I would say the programmers have more in common with our finance department than with the group I work in. We do have a call center in India (as well as a larger one here) but those are very basic level jobs so the programmers we have here in the US would not really be a good fit for that job. Even if they were, I’ve spoken to many of our Indian Immigrants and for the ones I’ve spoken to, none of them want to go back. These people are immigrants to this country, just like my great grandparents were from Italy a hundred years ago.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
@Thor
Not everything is about you. :) My previous post was not addressed to you.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
An interesting thought occurs to me (I’m sometimes slow on the uptake, so bear with me) …
… back when Julia Chestnut talked about how “… labor is a resource, and it can be grossly misallocated just like our capital resources have become.” (I know, it was back quite a ways into the comment stream — I said it sometimes took a while for the ideas to hit home)
Wouldn’t it be an interesting twist if a lot of the inability to fill positions (leading to higher unemployment) was due to people being unable to relocate to take those positions because their mortgages were under water? Of course, that’s not the whole story — for several decades now, we have become a nation of multiple-earner households, so that not only do we have to sell a house that is impossible to sell (underwater mortgages), but we also have to contend with the other members of the household being able to relocate to new jobs as well.
And to think that this might be a result of a political push (for many, many decades) to make more people homeowners!
Julia’s point about misallocation of resources is the important thing here — it is almost certainly true. I am merely musing about how we have changed from a nation where people flowed to where the jobs were to a nation of homebodies, and some of the causes for that.
By no means am I suggesting that this is the “cause” of the significant unemployment — that’s due to the economic shrinkage and the decline in the number of jobs in the economy over the past decade, while the population just keeps on increasing. And now, with the shrinkage of retirement assets, we will see a lot of boomers continuing to work (or attempt to continue to work) when they might otherwise have been edging toward the door and retirement. But the persistent nature of the unemployment (number of weeks without work) might well be related to the degree to which we have become geographically frozen in place, unable to consider opportunities even a state or two away.
Perhaps we need to encourage home ownership a little less, in order to facilitate a more relocatable work force. Just something to think about.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Well it sure sounded like it was!
And have I mentioned I’ve had a very bad day? :-)
March 10th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
@Thor
“And have I mentioned I’ve had a very bad day?”
Yeah, I kinda figured… :)
In case you are wondering, this prompted me to make that comment:
“it’s been my observation that most Americans are woefully ill-prepared for the rigors of serious IT work.”
Constantnormal wrote this.
@Constantnormal
“Wouldn’t it be an interesting twist if a lot of the inability to fill positions (leading to higher unemployment) was due to people being unable to relocate to take those positions because their mortgages were under water?”
This has been openly discussed for some time now. For example:
http://www.economist.com/world/united-states/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179528
March 10th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
Pete – I apologize :-)
Robespierre
“ower your standards and hire someone that may be less qualified than what you want.”
Yes – that’s exactly what we should be doing and that was the point I was trying to make. Here there are all of these people without jobs, and I work for a company who has a lot of jobs that need filling. We should absolutely take people who do not exactly meet our requirements and train them up to the level we need them to be at. Alas, this is not my company and I do not call the shots. I’ve suggested as much to our HR department but our “leaders” don’t seem to agree.
March 11th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Those supporting this diatribe by the Republicans can always find ne’er-do-wells who milk the system. There are two questions pertinent to their offering of those anecdotes:
1) What percentage of the multiple millions of unemployed and under-employed are they? Answer: the head of a pin and with angels on it, and
2) How much economic damage/cost do they exact on the economy and taxpayer, in their total, compared to the costs of schemes of Goldman-Sach, AIG, Enron, Bear-Streans, Fannie Me, etc. resulting in this credit crisis. Answer” compared to the Fed and Treasury bailouts, you’d need an electron microscope to read unemployment frauds and laziness’s tally.
Y’all are barking in the wrong place if you want justice and fairness. Stupid dogs–y’all are serving the wrong master.
March 11th, 2010 at 1:20 am
[...] a separate but related sighting, The Big Picture’s post ” An Epidemic of Laziness?” takes issue with the idea that extending unemployment insurance creates a disincentive to find [...]
March 11th, 2010 at 2:46 am
We should introduce Milton Friedman’s “negative income tax” and then eliminate many other overlapping programs.
Give everybody some tiny percentage of GDP every month, to cover what would normally be paid out in welfare, unemployment, food stamps — without regard to need. (Avoid “needs”-checking bureaucracy.) Then eliminate those existing programs.
The disincentive to work will be removed, because the benefits remain active even after you obtain employment.
March 11th, 2010 at 2:47 am
The “negative income tax” would be so much more efficient than all the overlapping programs we have now! So much so that we’d be able to pay out higher amounts and/or at lower real cost.
March 11th, 2010 at 3:03 am
>> I’ve suggested as much to our HR department but our “leaders” don’t seem to agree.
Thor, your leaders don’t agree because when they “don’t find anyone qualified” according to their exacting specifications, they by definition obtain the proof they need to hire an H1 (that they’ll train) for less.
I just wish the H1 program were extended to cover real estate agents, insurance brokers, and sales people of all kinds. As the program stands now, it’s a scam foisted by innumerate Americans on us Americans interested in math and science.
March 11th, 2010 at 5:58 am
“…Of course, that’s not the whole story — for several decades now, we have become a nation of multiple-earner households, so that not only do we have to sell a house that is impossible to sell (underwater mortgages), but we also have to contend with the other members of the household being able to relocate to new jobs as well.
And to think that this might be a result of a political push (for many, many decades) to make more people homeowners!
Julia’s point about misallocation of resources is the important thing here — it is almost certainly true. I am merely musing about how we have changed from a nation where people flowed to where the jobs were to a nation of homebodies, and some of the causes for that.
By no means am I suggesting that this is the “cause” of the significant unemployment — that’s due to the economic shrinkage and the decline in the number of jobs in the economy over the past decade, while the population just keeps on increasing…”
cn,
good thoughts, and, this: “Julia’s point, about misallocation of resources, is the important thing here.”, is, no doubt, True.
it is, actually, what I was angling toward, above, with: “I would certainly support publishing the top “dole earners” (the order here is almost entirely made up, but you get the idea):
1. James Dimon 17M
2. Lloyd Blankfein 9 M
3. Ken Lewis WTF M (Way Too F***ing Much)
…
as clawback delineates, above, below your post, let the whole of it be written..
and, to be clear, ‘Morgage Interest-deductions’ are, simply, another bad idea.
as soon as We start using the Tax Code to ‘incentivize’ behaviors, we should know that: 1. Those rules should be thrown out, and, 2. Tax Rates are too high..
LSS: More ‘Rules’ make for less thinking, which, hardly, encourages Innovation..
~
March 10th, 2010 at 6:57 pm, and further North
~~
and, this: “for several decades now, we have become a nation of multiple-earner households..”, I think, has more to do with the high cost of sustaining the State (Taxes and Inflation) and its Rules & Regulations, than it does with ‘simple choice’..
~~
If We had an accurate accounting/ “a role of those on the dole(of all stripe)”, We could begin to see, in Technicolor, as Aretha, so succinctly, puts it–”Who’s Zoomin’ Who?”
As it stands, even the GAO will not sign-off on most of the FedGov’s ‘books’, and, most peep attempt to ‘argue’ these points from limited anecdote, at best, wholesale propaganda, at the mean..
March 11th, 2010 at 7:07 am
I owned a temp help biz for 16 years, and worked for another for 7 years. I have had hundreds and hundreds of people turn down jobs because they were on unemployment. They did not want to take a job that paid only marginally more then the free money, even if it extended their UI as a result. They did not want to take a job that would only last 4-6 months or so either. they were PICKY and happy to get their freebies. DeLay is right to some extent, there are plenty of people who will not take a job so long as free money is out there. Only when the UI ran out and they were desperate would they take anything to make money.
March 11th, 2010 at 7:10 am
Dan,
You raise a valid point — but I would say many of those UI recipients were being rational, not lazy.
Say you are making $800 per week. Your UI is about half of that, and you are looking for a job at or at least near your old salary.
Do you take the $450 a week job (versus $400/wk UI)?
Or, do you stay on UI at $400, while continuing to actively look for a fulltime job at your recent salary?
40 hours a week at UI wages not only is a huge ego shock, it can get in your way of finding a job in your chosen industry educational training. Slackers hanging around getting stoned is one thing — but going from a highly paid specialist to a walmart greeter is something else entirely …
March 11th, 2010 at 7:20 am
[...] Barry calls BS on the "epidemic of laziness". (TBP) [...]
March 11th, 2010 at 8:31 am
Nearly 150 comments — excellent discussion –
Without commenting on any specific post, I have to note the various methods of discussion/argument:
-Some people use data and statistics to prove their point;
-Other make emotional arguments that attempt to persuade;
-Still others go to accepted wisdom/myths/cliches;
-Some use anecdotes;
-Others default to talking points from the left or the right
-And we cannot forget the ad hominom attacks
-There is a FUD approach — just raise a little doubt as opposed to destroying any argument
-Lastly, there are the out right lies (which we thankfully avoid here)
I find the various approaches to rhetoric and debate fascinating. I’ve never seen a study done on this, but I suspect what your argument style is on a given issue says a lot about the strength of your particular position.
March 11th, 2010 at 8:35 am
I can only offer my personal anecdote. As a young college graduate living with my parents during the late seventies & early eighties economic malaise, I became quite proficient at gaming the unemployment system and as a result spent a good deal of my twenties collecting unemployment compensation while horseback riding all day and night clubbing all night. The federal extensions that were implemented back then were of great assistance in this effort. So there may be some truth to the suggestion. And I believe Lawrence Katz has empirical data that might support this contention as well.
But even if you discount my personal experience and the Katz study, I think it is still fairly easy to make the case that an extended unemployment compensation policy discourages people who have been laid off from taking one of the many lower wage jobs available in small businesses (at least in my area of Western PA) that are advertised in the windows of any number of fast food joints, dry cleaners, motels, etc. To the extent this keeps productive economic activity from occurring while fostering unproductive activity, I would rather see the incentives increased to increase the former over the latter. But that’s just me…
March 11th, 2010 at 8:57 am
BR,
Like the graph–clear representation of the cause and effect of American worker “laziness”–someone needs to present that to the Senate. Maybe someone on Obama’s staff reads this blog.
We shouldn’t really be so shocked about this conviction of a number of Republicans–many more I suspect believe it as well but they are keeping it under wraps for fear of reprisal in the elections. As an example of how widespread this belief is I’ll remind you all that we have heard this long ago from a very prominent president (famously ignorant and uneducated reader of mainly Reader’s Digest) who has an airport named after him and some now want on the $50 bill:
“Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for free-loaders”
– Ronald Reagan, Sacramento Bee, circa 1983
March 11th, 2010 at 9:10 am
Ya know, I really don;t get why this is a Republican v. Democrat thing.
As far as I am concerned….Bunning was right. I know too many people on Long Island that are currently not working. I have asked a few of them at my daughters basket ball games (she is 11) and her soccer club meetings, what are they doing about it? Their answer…NOTHING. Unemployment pays better than anything I could get right now, what is my incentive to go find something. If you people can’t see that people aer abrusing the whole UE thing, your as blind as the leaders in CONGRESS (BOTH SIDES)
March 11th, 2010 at 9:13 am
“but I suspect what your argument style is on a given issue says a lot about the strength of your particular position.”
Or in the case of the unemployed people with enough time to create this many comments, both the strength of their positions AND their argument styles are weak due to their inherent laziness.
Kidding aside, I often wonder whether discourse in US (and the world) has degenerated as it has become easier to create confusion with flawed argumentation in a more fragmented media landscape…or was it always like this.
Later fellow Romans…back to the job search for me :-)
March 11th, 2010 at 9:42 am
For once the market forces are doing something good. Those people for whom unemployment is unbearable, rush out and look for work immediately and take the few available jobs. Those for whom it is a welcome opportunity to reconnect with children, relax, start up that new business they always dreamed about, etc. don’t get out there taking away jobs from those who desperately need one. And those who are lucky enough to not lose their jobs support the jobless with a minimal survival stipend. Exactly what is wrong with that picture?
If we have to have a dysfunctional economic system with boom and bust cycles where huge numbers of people on a regular basis are barred from participating in productive activities and gainful employment (because the capitalistic systems inefficiencies create unemployment), then thank good that some of them actually can handle a period with very low income.
March 11th, 2010 at 9:54 am
For each of those anecdotes about lazy people, I’m sure there are 10 scenarios where a person gets on UI, looks for a job, finds one (of whatever quality) and transitions off. IF we try to base our entire perception on the anecdotes, unemployment should be 40%, with another 25% chomping at the bit to quit. But we know that’s not true. Anecdotals are nice to illustrate problems. Never use them as foundations of policy.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Wunsacon@2:46; yes I like the idea of giving everybody a small “survival” stipend as their reward for being citizens of this great country. I would combine it with a mandatory 2 years of community service immediately after you leave high-school (even if you leave early). You could choose between military, national guard, national park duty, civil defense, community service or other useful programs that benefit society. After two years of serving others, the young people would be much better matured to make decisions about their future, and nobody could claim that they had not earned their survival stipend.
March 11th, 2010 at 11:31 am
“Unemployment develops, that is to say, because people want the moon” – John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1933.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
March 11th, 2010 at 11:33 am
[...] I engaged in a bit of debate with Invictus at The Big Picture over a post there called, An Epidemic of Laziness? During that debate, due to being in a somewhat foul mood about other things, I may have been a tad [...]
March 11th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
[...] Barry Ritholtz at Big Picture, noting suggestions by Sen. Jim Bunning, Sen. Jon Kyl and Tom DeLay that unemployment benefits give people an incentive to be lazy, poses a question: [...]
March 11th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
[...] suppresses the willingness to work of those receiving benefits. Way to go Larry! And Kyl, you’re a dipshit. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)The world is getting small but are we coming [...]
March 11th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Typical… welfare queen strawman, and then blame the victim.
How about my anecdotal data? I’m an engineer, and in my field, it usually takes months to find a job for midlevel or higher positions. Even if you have saved up cash for 6 months of expenses, this environment it takes even longer to find a job.
And no engineer wants to be out of work too long, because the skills atrophy. Too long, and you probably won’t be an engineer anymore. Engineers go into finance, etc., but the arrow doesn’t go the other way.
As for hiring qualified people- many employers are unwilling to retrain qualified people or groom junior staff (exception: H1Bs and offshoring). Companies have neglected the farm team, then turn around and wonder why they can’t find anyone.
Also, many high tech guys don’t want to be contractors, because of the ridiculous laws (including the one that drove the guy to fly his plane into the building a few weeks ago).
March 11th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
This comment thread gets a mention at naked capitalism:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/03/median-net-worth-of-single-black-women-in-prime-working-years-5.html
http://www.insightcced.org/uploads/CRWG/LiftingAsWeClimb-InsightCenter-Spring2010.pdf
“However, while white women in the prime working years of ages 36-49 have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61% of their white male counterparts), the median wealth for women of color is only $5.”
March 11th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Awesome…
Particularly…
“I think that the people who actually believe that the majority of unemployed are simply “lazy” are merely explaining their own good fortune by attributing it to their own innate worth as employees. Nothing could be further from the truth.” – constantnormal
Hit the nail on the head. This mentality is at the core of the divisions in our society. “This is America. I did it. Why can’t you?” The environment surrounding your womb and subsequent Individual life experiences be damned.
As heartening as this is, I can’t help but imagine the millions of people, most of them suffering, as pawns of corporations who have come to the conclusion that along with over leveraging, outsourcing, post recall PR perspectives and so on, have concluded over the past couple of decades that layoffs are a way to make quarterly/yearly earnings. I’m no economist, but I thought hiring to meet the needs of the organic growth of your company rather than over-hiring in the boom and firing in droves after a bust, large or small, national or internal, was the way to run a company.
But again… heartening! While reading this thread, I thought of how a number of you should be applying your intelligence for the greater good. We need thought like this in our government… at least until you become an atrophied, myopic hairball in the drain of society. Until you become… what was it, BR?
Rep. or Sen. “Lazy Ass Bum.”
March 11th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
I’m going to hazard a guess that 158 responses is pretty unusual for one of these Big Picture posts. If so I think that in itself is pretty interesting.
To me, it’s another example of America’s anti-government psychosis: beating up on the underdog and attributing bad character to individual citizens, who in most cases are victims, is part of the anti-government attitude so prevalent in this country. The anti-government spokesperson par excellence, Ronald Reagan, used to engage in this stuff regularly. He loved his story about the welfare “queen” who rode in a Cadillac and he was known to argue publicly that he couldn’t understand how all these people could be unemployed when there were so many jobs listed in the want ads; he went on to add that it was his theory that they were just taking a vacation. Blaming the victim for economic woes is so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that most of those unemployed during the Great Depression blamed themselves. I call this a national psychosis because such widespread beliefs, so incredibly contrary to actual reality, call out for some kind of national derangement as an explanation.
March 11th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Larry,
You raise a couple of excellent points that get lost in the sturm und drang of blaming the majority of the victims. Don’t let anyone know about that. Another unspeakable is a person who uses the time to go back to school or get training. They should be working, and school is for sissies.
March 11th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
I just want to note that it is simply AMAZING that someone could read through these posts and believe they read versions of Reagan’s “welfare queen” argument, or that the commenters were “blaming the victim” or whatnot. Eye of the beholder, I suppose.
March 11th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
An Epidemic of Laziness? These guys are contemptible. They feed at the taxpayer trough for years, then insult people who actually do work and create some value to society, as opposed to the politicians alleged “public service”, i.e. lining their own pockets. Just contemptible. And sad.
March 12th, 2010 at 7:30 am
clawback,
I’m afraid I didn’t make my point very clearly. I was not so much addressing the content of the posts as I was the sheer number of them. What is it about this thread’s topic that has elicited 162 posts (and counting)? My guess is it hits a nerve in America’s anti-government psychosis and thus manages to elicit such an abundance of responses. It doesn’t matter where you stand on the issue, because of our national psychosis it just excites a great deal of comment. Why would this apparently not terribly significant topic have excited so many contributions?
March 12th, 2010 at 8:01 am
Part of it is in the “I Want to Believe” syndrome. I permanent unemployment is only something that hit lazy bastards, then the current unemployment picture is a lot less scary than if anybody can be hit by it at any time.
March 12th, 2010 at 10:04 am
bondjel,
OK. I don’t know it’s about any psychosis or not (I would like to think of it as a healthy skepticism based on sound political philosophy), but in my view the number of comments is due to everyone having had personal experience with the job market, some of us with UI, and our experience watching peers move in and out of the job market. We’ve all got our stories and anecdotes — the topic strikes close to home. That’s what I think explains the number of comments because I didn’t see a lot of anti-govt rants above.
Definitely a great thread, though!
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Barry/invictus,
I wanted to share this Andrew Sullivan post which seemed very relevant to your recent post titled “An Epidemic of Laziness?”. See below. Btw, I also enjoyed the recent post from Barry on healthcare reform — I don’t even care about your views on the issue, although I have my own, it’s just nice to hear from another level head.
-Ned
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/03/the-view-from-your-recession.html
The View From Your Recession
22 Mar 2010 05:10 pm
A reader writes:
I posted an ad on craiglist for an $8.55 minimum-wage, part-time person to work at our dog kennel in Snohomish, Washington. The job is not glamorous. Picking up poop, walking dogs cleaning diarrhea, etc. I received over 245 resumes in just a couple of days. Everybody from the high school kid up to the unemployed 60 year old. It’s simply amazing how many people are dying to get even a low paying job like this.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:31 am
[...] Jon Kyl and others). (See previous — heavily commented — BP post on this subject here.) Extended Unemployment and UI [...]
April 21st, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Doesn’t anyone understand the true purposes of extending UE benefits?
1) The number of candidates for every job opening is at a ALL-TIME high. (Duh!)
2) Pols are very aware that the social fabric is getting dangerously strained. See this:
http://www.archein21.com/2010/04/americans-and-government.html
2a) Remind me again how many firearms we’ve got in private hands in this country? Hmmm?
2b) The UE rate is the bottom quintile of income is at 31% (!!)
3) Mix the 3 items from 2) above and add to the mix some important factoids from the Great Depression, like for instance, all these men that camped near the Capitol for months? What do you think could be its modern equivalent if UE benefits would be cut now? Anyone think desperate people don’t do desperate things? Has human nature changed THAT much?
While were on the topics of “benefits” anyone wanna talk about the incredible “benefits” of 28 of the biggest corporations in the US who did not pay ANY US taxes in the last 3 years?
Let’s dispense with the cheap ass moralization and look at the cold hard facts: this is a tremendous recession that disproportionately affect those at the bottom, while those at the top keep on getting tons of goodies from the govermin.
And some people want to push those at the bottom to absolute despair? Sup with that? Looking for real trouble much, aren’t we? Is that the agenda?